Unforgivable
by you.just.got.STORMed
Summary: "To her, they seemed like a break up line, a closing of her relationship with Cleon of Kennan. little did she realise that they would be the final words that she ever heard from his lips, and the dawn of a new grief..." Short story, is now complete.
1. I: Unforgivable

_**A/N: Hey, this will probably be a shorter story (2/3 chapters). A spinoff loosely based on real life.**_

**_The only things you really need to know are: this is set after Lady Knight. Cleon and Kel are back together. _**

**I:**

_"Where did I go wrong?, __I lost a friend,_

_Somewhere along in the bitterness,_

_And I would have stayed up with you all night,_

_Had I known... how to save a life."_

**-How To Save A Life, The Fray**

* * *

He drew his lips away from hers, his blue green eyes troubled.

"I'm sorry, Kel. I can't take it any more. I just can't."

Confused, Kel stared back at him. "What?"

"I can't do it anymore," Cleon of Kennan repeated, his voice low and upset.

"Can't do what?" Kel asked, her brow furrowed with puzzlement.

Cleon closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "See you, looking at him... I'm second in your eyes. I've seen the way you look at him, Kel- you can't deny it."

"Look at who?" she demanded, now truly worried. "Cleon, what?"

He didn't open his eyes. "Masbolle, of course. You look at him like he's Mithros himself. I can't stand second to that. I'm sorry, Kel."

As those fateful words echoed in her mind, a sickening feeling of faint relief coming over her, Keladry of Mindelan didn't realise what those words were. To her, they seemed like a break up line, a closing of her relationship with Cleon of Kennan. But little did she realise that they would be the final words that she ever heard from his lips, and the dawn of a new grief.

* * *

"It was terrible," Neal bowed his head at the sheer memory, horror on his every feature. "There was blood everywhere... and in the middle, just lying there..."

He trailed off, leaving Domitan of Masbolle no doubt at the outcome of the story.

"That's... awful," Dom shook his head dumbly. He hadn't known Cleon of Kennan personally, but still... "So there's no clue as to... well, why? Did he definitely do it to himself?"

Neal nodded, grimacing. "Yes- he did it to himself... The way the dagger was lying... And that sheet of paper with the message..."

Dom gulped slightly. "That's awful... I don't know how you could ever, well, do that to yourself..."

He trailed off uncertainly, but in the silence, the same horrified emotion was conveyed clearly between the two cousins.

* * *

At Cleon of Kennan's funeral, there were exactly nine people who cared.

One and two, his mother and father, both with the same orange hair of their late son.

Three, four and five, Cleon's younger sisters, their heads hung with grief.

Six, seven and eight- Neal, Merric and Faleron, the only ones of their year group with the time to attend.

Keladry of Mindelan was the ninth, her face a stone mask of hidden misery.

It was all her fault.

Cleon's self-inflicted death... everything.

And such a monster that had caused someone's death deserved never to be happy again.

* * *

The next several weeks were full of agonising, slow moments. Visitors, their faces all one big blur, coming over and over again. The only thing each had in common with the last was the look of pity on their faces.

Kel couldn't stand pity.

She deserved to be hated, hated for what she had done to Cleon.

It was the worst when Neal came to visit. At first, he came constantly, his vivid green eyes full of worry for his friend.

"Kel, you have to eat. You can't just waste away... Kel, you need to come out of your room. I know that it's been hard on you but no one blames you. You need to start _living_ again."

But that was the problem. No one blamed her, and they should.

Kel simply nodded and returned to staring out of her window at the grey, bleak sky.

* * *

Neal, however, was persistant despite her silence- and horribly perceptive.

"You blame yourself, don't you," Neal's voice was soft as he looked down at his friend's face. "What was it? Did you have a fight before he... did it? Did he say something that made you think that?"

The silence reigned upon them.

* * *

And yet, he didn't stop.

"Keladry!" Neal finally exploded one day. "Look at me. Look at me _now."_

Surprised, Kel turned her eyes onto him.

"Good," Neal said firmly, placing one finger under her chin to force her to keep looking at him. "Now hear me, and understand me. What happened to Cleon was not your fault. He killed _himself_, Kel. Nothing you could have said or done could have stopped him."

Kel's eyes somehow managed to find the floor, and fix on it.

"_Kel_." This time, Neal's tone was not merely firm, it was deadly. "_Listen to me_. Cleon was selfish to kill himself like that and leave you like this. It _wasn't_ your fault."

Something inside of Kel snapped as she heard Neal's words against Cleon.

"Get out," she stated coldly, her voice a monotone.

Neal's mouth opened slightly and he stared at her. "What?"

"_Out_," Kel repeated darkly, her voice steel. "Now."

And that was how she finally drove Nealan of Queenscove away- or so she thought.

* * *

"She doesn't eat, she won't talk, she refuses to come out and now she hates me!" Neal's voice rose at the end of his sentence, his frustration showing through clearly. "What am I supposed to do?"

His cousin's blue eyes stared back at him thoughtfully. "This is bad," Dom commented quietly, trying to hide his bubbling emotions. "This is really bad."

"Oh well, thankyou for that piece of information, I hadn't figured it out myself!" Neal scoffed with annoyance, before registering the look on his cousin's face. "What's wrong with _you_?"

Dom shook his head and looked away. "_Nothing_. It doesn't matter."

Neal was oddly perceptive for someone of his personality. "No, tell me."

There was a long silence between them, before Dom swallowed painfully, his expression uncomfortable. "I... Well I... I kind of..."

"Spit it out," Neal told him impatiently.

"IkindofmaybesortoflikeKel," Dom's words came out in a rush, but Neal somehow still managed to understand them.

"You like her?" He demanded increduously. "_You_ and _Kel_?"

Dom's cheeks went slightly red. "Shut up, Meathead," he muttered rudely.

Neal was actually smiling, his eyes wicked. "Oh, that's funny. It really is. And all this time I thought you just flirted with her because you _could_!"

His cousin shook his head awkwardly, and gave in to his turmoil of thoughts."Now, though... Well it's not going to happen, is it? If she's shut down... And I haven't seen her before I went away on my assignment... It's been so long... I don't know..." He mumbled, a desperate look in his blue eyes.

"You should talk to her," Neal pointed out, hope filling him suddenly. "You were always friends... Maybe you could help."

* * *

A knock on the door made Kel jerk out of her sombre memories.

"Come in," she called reluctantly, wondering who on earth it was. Barely anyone visited anymore- Merric had come a while ago, but had never come back. Neal hadn't returned since she'd told him to get out, and her mother had been last time her family was in Corus- but for a long time, Kel had seen no one.

Some days, she wondered absently if she missed human company, and conversation.

Others, she revelled in her solitude- her chance to remember Cleon, and what she'd done to him.

After all, she didn't deserve to be happy.

The door opened slowly with a creak, but Kel didn't bother turning around. It didn't really matter who it was- she wasn't going to talk to them anyway.

"Hello," a familiar voice said awkwardly.

Kel froze, her heart racing. It wasn't... It couldn't... It shouldn't...

She turned her head ever so slowly, and her eyes took in her tall, male visitor.

_"I can't take it anymore... I'm second in your eyes..."_

Gradually, her gaze travelled up his bright blue tunic and to his face.

___"I've seen the way you look at him..."_

Her own hazel eyes met puzzled yet concerned blue sapphires.

_"... Masbolle, of course..."_

Here, standing in front of her, was the temptation that she had been unable to take her eyes off, the unforgivable sin she had committed that had driven Cleon to his death...

It was her fault. It was all her fault.

Keladry of Mindelan opened her mouth, tears already overflowing from her hazel eyes, and screamed loudly.


	2. II: Tragedy

"Did you go and see her?" Neal blurted out immediately when Dom walked into the breakfast hall.

Dom raised agonised blue eyes to meet his cousin's. "I'm surprised you didn't hear the screams from your end of the castle."

Neal stared at him for a moment. "What do you mean?"

Sighing deeply, Dom sat heavily on the bench opposite Neal. "I mean that the moment I walked in the door, she started crying and screaming. She wouldn't say a word. I didn't know what to do. I tried to comfort her, but..." He gestured in frustration. "Nothing worked."

Neal tried to swallow his shock and disappointment. "I really thought that you..."

Dom looked away. "So did I."

The flatness of his cousin's voice was uncharacteristic and Neal's worry extended to include Dom himself.

It was silent as the two men finished their breakfast, the sound of metal scraping against plates being the only noise at the table.

"You have to go again," Neal said suddenly.

Dom didn't even look up. "I can't. It's obvious she doesn't want to see me."

Neal gritted his teeth. "You might be the only chance she has to be really alive again."

There was a slight pause. The urgency of Neal's tone must have convinced Dom that there was a lot at stake, because slowly his cousin nodded. "I'll try."

* * *

A gentle knock on the door broke Kel from her silent, brooding state. She turned her head listlessly towards the door and managed to croak out something resembling 'come in'. Her throat was raw and sore from screaming and crying. All night dreams of Dom and a bloodstained Cleon had kept her awake. Her eyes were dry and her lips cracked; she felt worse than she ever had.

The door opened slightly with its customary creak but no one came in. Kel waited, a dull curiousity rising within her.

"Kel?" that voice called out softly. "It's me. Can I come in?"

She clutched at her neck as croaking screams tried to escape. It hurt, it really did, but somehow it was like penance- justice for that awful thing she'd brought upon Cleon.

Panicking at the noises coming from her room that sounded distinctly like death itself, Dom shoved the door open the rest of the way and sprinted into the room, over to the bed where Kel was sitting.

"Oh, Kel," he halted abruptly when he saw that she was trying to scream. "_Kel_."

His voice reminded her of happy, sunlight days in the Own, of being a squire, of getting her knighthood, of laughing, of joking, of _happiness_.

It made her feel worse. The shame, at the happy days she had spent with Dom, not realising that Cleon _knew_ how she felt about him.

It was all her fault.

She stopped her futile screams and instead fell silent and shut her eyes, burying her face firmly in her hands. She couldn't see him, but she could still feel his presence, and it made Cleon all the more alive in her memory.

Dom tentatively moved closer. He got to the edge of the bed and sat lightly next to Kel- not too close. "Kel? Talk to me. Please."

The sympathy in his voice and the guilt it brought out made Kel, quite literally, want to die.

And suddenly she knew what she had to do.

"Go, just go away," she said as harshly and as loudly as she could manage. "Leave me alone. I don't want you. I don't need you. Go!"

It hurt him, sitting there next to her listening to her rant things like this. But he didn't move.

She opened her eyes and took her hands away from her face, and actually turned to him. He was like the sun to look at, pain stabbing at her mind and burning her eyes.

"_Go_."

He shook his head desperately. "Please Kel, I just want to help you."

For a moment, she stopped and thought about what she could have if she let him in. If she forgave herself, if she let herself move on. Endless days with Dom and Neal, smiling and laughing like old times. Joking with the Third Company, helping her refugees at New Hope. Enjoying life, living again.

She shattered her joyful dream with several choice words. "I hate you. Don't ever come back."

With those seven words, she made herself fall back into that pit of guilt and depression- after all, it was what she deserved. Watching his blue eyes drop with pain and his mouth open slightly, trying to form words, she felt a certain, deadly kind of satisfaction. She was back where she belonged. Guilty, broken and miserable.

* * *

Dom stumbled out into the corridor, feeling like he had just been rammed with a spear. Such cold, plain rejection from the woman he loved hurt more than he could have ever imagined.

But he knew Kel. Well, he had known her. And something in the way she looked at him, the way she had spoken, seemed to him like a lie.

He hoped it wasn't just his ego talking.

But he knew that he would have to go back and try again later. Because this was Kel, and he loved her, and she didn't deserve to be like that.

* * *

It took him exactly three hours to muster up the courage to walk back down that corridor and stop again outside that door. Maybe it was too soon, he didn't know. But he knew that he had to try again, because if he didn't now, he never would.

He lifted his arm, hesitated once, and then knocked.

The knock seemed to resonate in the corridor like a death bell tolling.

He waited, nervous and shaky.

Yet nothing happened. There was no croaky 'come in', no movement noises from inside the room.

The silence made him more panicky than anything else could. What was she doing? Was she even in there? Had she left, because of him? Did she know how he felt about her? Did she already have a visitor? Was she sick, hurt, anything? _Would she have...?_

A sudden, icy horror gripped Dom's heart and he grabbed the doorhandle desperately, bursting into Kel's room for the second time that day.

He looked around, and then he saw her, sitting with her back to the door near the fireplace. As a warm relief flooded him, he felt stupid for thinking the worst.

Just for a second.

Then as he took in her stiff posture- the way she was propped up against a chair, the liquid on the floor around her- he dashed forwards to kneel on the ground beside Kel's body.

"Oh Kel," he whispered, his head sagging with complete, utter misery. "_Why_?"

It was when he took her hand, expecting it to be cold and lifeless, that he realised- there was warmth, and a faint, oh so faint, pulse.

"NEAL!" Dom bellowed, scooping up Kel's body with his hands like it was a limp, breathing doll. "NEAL!" He sprinted out of the room and into the corridor as fast as he could. "NEALAN!"


	3. III: Now

**III:**

She was so_ still_.

Dom watched anxiously, his heart beating like a scared rabbit's, as Neal, exhausted from the previous efforts, once again placed his hands over Kel's stomach, green fire streaming from his fingers.

"Will she live?" Dom whispered desperately.

Neal took his hands away from Kel and ran them through his already dishevelled hair, dark circles of worry under his eyes. "She's going to live."

Dom expelled a heavy breath that he hadn't realised he had been holding. "Thank Mithros."

Managing a faint, relieved grin, Neal came up with a characteristic reply. "No, thank cousin Neal."

* * *

He sat at her bedside all afternoon, and then all night. He couldn't sleep- the thought of what could happen to Kel if he wasn't watching made him feel ill.

It was early morning, the sun just beginning to creep through the infirmary window, when Kel stirred slightly, mumbling something under her breath. Dom watched her as the sun hit her face, highlighting the paleness of her skin and the dark bruises underneath her eyes. He couldn't help it; he reached over and touched her hand protectively. He couldn't bear seeing her like this.

The touch must have woken her up- she jerked with shock and her eyes flew open, her startled hazel gaze taking in her surroundings and the thick, white bandages around her stomach.

A moment passed, Dom staring at her, torn between hopefulness and sympathy.

She shut her eyes, and two tears ran out. With these two tears came more, until it was a flood of sobs so violent that her whole body shook.

"Kel," Dom, worried, stood from his seated position and crouched on the ground next to her bed, reaching forward to pat her hand in a gesture of comfort.

It was his voice- his voice that previously tortured her- that finally undid her hard casing of guilt and misery.

"I didn't die," Kel choked, her words indistinct with tears. "I... deserve to die, and I didn't."

At this, Dom gripped her hand tightly with both of his hands. "Don't say that. Never say that. You do not deserve to die, Kel."

The strength of this statement eased her sobs slightly and she managed to open her eyes and fix them upon him. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"I think I do," Dom said softly. "Kel, no matter what, you are an amazing person, you've done so much. I know you, and you don't deserve to die. We need you."

A brief, sardonic smile flitted across her face. "If that's true, why is Cleon gone?"

Dom hesitated before answering. "What happened to Cleon was not your fault. It was his own choice. This just proves that there was more going on in his life and in his head than anyone knew about. You need to forgive yourself."

Her mouth tightened and a burst of words came out before she could stop them. "I tried to punish myself. The dagger, in my stomach... it was supposed to make me suffer when I died, make it drag out for as long as possible. It was supposed to make all this right again. I was going to die because I killed Cleon. It was _justice_." Her voice broke slightly, but she continued. "It didn't work though. I tried, and it didn't work," her voice became light, almost childlike.

She was scaring him.

"_Kel_," he said sharply. The single utterance of her name jerked her back into reality and her eyes re-focused on Dom.

"Listen to me," he continued frantically. "You didn't die. You dying would not have been justice, it would have been a tragedy. _Kel_. If- if..." he swallowed solidly, his mouth going dry with nervousness. "If you died, I don't know what I would do."

She looked at him, her gaze almost considering. "You know, I wanted you, once upon a time. I liked you. But now I can't ever have you. I don't deserve to have you."

She had descended back into her light, dreamy state, and Dom's heart sunk.

Kel blinked slightly. "But maybe," she continued. "Maybe I'm not meant to die... I never loved him, you know," she said suddenly to Dom. "That was why he died. He knew that I liked you."

"Kel. Kel." Dom squeezed her hand; once again she seemed to come back to the real world.

"Dom?" she whispered, her voice oddly fearful, her face suddenly vulnerable. "I'm tired."

She slid back against the pillows, and her eyes shut as she fell back into slumber.

* * *

Still he waited. He couldn't leave her- well at any rate, he didn't want to. Inevitably, he eventually fell asleep, his upper half resting on Kel's bed.

Hours later, Kel woke again, to darkness and a heavy warmth resting against her. She moved slightly, and a pain stabbed through her stomach. Wincing, she stretched her arms and legs, feeling more uncomfortably alive than she had in the last year.

Dom jerked awake when she moved, his hair messy and his eyes sleepy. "Kel?"

She frowned a little, reaching down to touch her wound. "Yes?"

He moved his arm so that it was resting against hers. "How do you feel?"

"Like I should be dead..." Kel said slowly.

For a couple of seconds, there was only silence.

"I'm scared," she said finally.

Dom gazed at her and lifted his hand to cover hers. "Of what?"

She shivered slightly at the contact. "Of living again. I don't know how to, after these past few months... All the time I just wanted to die, I hated myself and what I'd done. The last few months... They've been like a nightmare. But I tried to die, and you stopped me. And I slept, and there was light and warmth and I dreamed and for the first time I didn't dream of _him_- of Cleon. Now..." She trailed off uncertainly.

"Now?" he prompted gently.

She let her hazel eyes meet his for the first time in months. "I want to live. I really want to live. But I don't know how I can, with what I did to Cleon..."

He stared at her, at her pale, thin face, her mussed brown hair, at her large, guilty hazel eyes. "You have to understand. Kel. It wasn't what you did. It was what he did."

Her brow crinkled. "I think... I understand that. It was his choice, wasn't it? He could have lived on but he chose to die... didn't he?"

Dom nodded, finally allowing a smile to creep across his face. "You have to keep remembering that."

She bit her lip. "I want to. I'll try."

Tenderly, he reached for her other hand and held it. "You know I'll help you."

The two stared at each other for a moment, and Dom finally let out what he had been thinking for months- Mithros, maybe even years- to her face. "I love you, Kel."

A timid smile lifted the corners of her mouth. "I've always loved you."

And now, it was just a matter of living to love one another.

_The end_


End file.
